So Desperate to Be Loved
by Princess Jaquline Chess
Summary: Mabel Pines feels second best to Dipper, and the whole world changes because of it. One-shot! Implied/One-sided Mabill.


Mabel Pines never meant to start the apocalypse again.

She's sixteen and just wanting to be loved when it starts. Her twin brother – Dipper – is the ultra-genius of the family, the pride and joy, the one going places like Stanford and Yale. Her? Oh, she was going places, but her family wasn't quite sure where yet.

She loved her brother. Dipper, unlike everyone else, never put up a pretense. He got that she was different, that she liked having pink streaks in her hair and staying up till three in the morning writing self-insert Avengers fanfics. Every morning before school he would sit across from her with a wide smile, laptop open as he finished his homework and share coffee with her, talking about his latest discovery and letting her blabber on about a really great _Tangled_ fan comic she found too.

But then the early admissions letter came. Dipper was now going to those places, off across the country to some fancy Northeastern school that would get his foot in the door. And she was happy for him, really, but then just like that her life line was gone and it was just her and her parents.

Every second of every day became "why can't you be like Dipper?" and "why did you fail that math test?" and she could never muster up the courage to tell them that she's just trying her best and if they could just _listen t_ o her –

She's seventeen when she packs her bags, gets in her van (purchased from where she got a job, all on her own), and drives straight from Piedmont to Gravity Falls, Oregon. From the second she steps inside the Mystery Shack; her two Great Uncle's never once ask why she wasn't like Dipper and why she wasn't good at math and all that ever stuff that drove her up the wall.

She tells Dipper where she went because it's not Dipper's fault that her parents are like this, and she knows he told them, but they never come looking for her. That's alright with her. Gravity Falls was her home more than Piedmont would ever be.

She slips back into life here easily. Though it's been years, things still run pretty much the same. Candy and Grenda are still the best friends in the whole wide world and just like true friends they don't ask questions, they just let Mabel talk when she's ready and are there when she needs them. Soos and Melanie are great too, looking out for her.

Wendy helps her get into school and before long, Mabel becomes a regular not a tourist. She stopped being 'the niece of the Pine brother's' and started being 'Mabel – Locker A113'. She was home.

But it was too good to last.

Before long Dipper is back to visit and she loves having him here, but every second of every day is about him and how he's doing and though no one says it she can feel the judgmental stares aimed at her. He's seventeen and so successful, why isn't she?

She keeps in for a while, because it's only one summer and it's not Dipper's fault. Dipper deserves all the praise because he works so hard for it and every second in the spotlight he gets wasn't because he was hogging it but because he earned it. But it wouldn't hurt if for once in their damn lives she got that stupid spotlight too, would it?

It's then that he comes back. Only he's different this time – not a triangle and not as mean. He's human now, and very and very handsome. He claims that he wants to change, saw the error of his ways, and knows Mabel is the one who can help him.

She wants to be wary, but she's always been one to see the good in others. So, when Bill comes knocking for her help she doesn't slam the door like her head tells her too because her heart can't ignore the pleading look in his eyes. Besides, it's nice that someone wants her help, is looking to her over her brother.

Bill is a secret, one he swore she mustn't tell because then they would all come for him. They weren't ready for the truth yet and he still had so much to learn. And she agrees to it, because he _trusts_ her which felt amazing because no one else besides Dipper has ever really trusted her with anything.

The summer ends and her eighteenth birthday passes, and Dipper leaves but Bill stays. Bill is getting better now, and Mabel starts to feel something for him. More than gratitude, more than even a friendship, she realizes that she loves him because he has changed so much and just wants to be accepted.

She loves him and tries to get him out into the world, but he still holds back. Winter comes too and he's still not ready and when she tries again, he kisses her and that stops her argument because who cares what the rest of the world thinks or if they even know about a human Bill, just as long as she stays here in his arms forever.

Spring comes when she realizes how wrong she truly was.

Bill was a liar and always would be and he used that sticky language, tricked her into apocalypse again because she was stupid and no wonder no one trusted her. But he put her in a cage again, and with Dipper gone no one can rally the forces of Gravity Falls. It's her in a cage as Bill rules her home and there is nothing she can do.

Bill visits now and again, and she swore sometimes she sees regret in his eyes, but she was never sure. Affection is their too, but Mabel doesn't trust it. He never loses his human form now, maybe he wasn't lying when he said that this was his true form now. Months ago, she had felt his lips against hers and they had felt like so much more than illusion, but she had also thought he loved her.

And how wrong she had been.

Mabel Pines is eighteen now and just wants to be loved, and she is caught in a war again, and once again she never meant to wage it.

* * *

 ** _I should be writing for my Tangled: The Series fics, but I saw some Mabill fan art and wrote this little ditty because feels happened, okay?_**

 ** _I've always felt like Mabel got shafted in the show - cast as the less intelligent one and more immature, and this was the product of that. As for the Mabill, I've left it kinda open on if Bill felt the same as she did. I personally think he did, but that need for power overrode it._**

 ** _I might actually fic this for real some day, but I got so much Tangled stuff on-going right now that I can't._**

 ** _Let me know what you guys thought of this one-shot!_**  
 ** _\- Princess Chess_**


End file.
